I was asked in the very beginning of ricRACK who were the youth that ricRACK wanted to serve? Was it the less fortunate? at risk? Little kids or teens? Girls or boys? Under-privileged? Economically deprived?

And I answered ALL children.

It makes my heart pitter patter to see youngsters sitting at a sewing machine, measuring out seam allowance, pinning fabrics together, and seeing a finished product.

I don’t want to discriminate or choose students based on anything.

I want sewing resources available for any and all children.I’d heard once that if you have the skills to sew, you could build a house. And, I do believe that. I think when your brain is learning the techniques to put materials together, measure, and fit, that information translates into so many other areas of building and construction. It’s great to know that we’re not just teaching sewing, but skills and thinking patterns that affect so many areas of life.We are grateful and humbled to be given the opportunity to teach.It’s one thing to say you want to teach kids how to sew, it’s another to do it. In 2017, we’re close to our 5 year anniversary, and still learn how to work and adapt to new and different students. But, just as we started, we still keep our doors open to ALL youth.

There were a lot of factions that came together, in a way, to create the perfect storm, aka my passion to create ricRACK.

I didn’t know it then, how it was all going to come together to create what we know now as ricRACK…..a re-sale shop, children’s sewing and repurposing lessons, an entrepreneur program, free Halloween costume give-aways for kids, adult professional classes, and the grandmother of all wardrobe sales, Hollywood Thrift.

There’s no one impetus, but many things that can be accredited to ricRACK’s identity.

So, I’ll begin with the beginning.

I started wondering, “if kids want to learn how to sew, what resources are available?” If you’re like me, you learned to sew in school, as part of a home economics curriculum. But, if there’s no more home ec, and a family member doesn’t teach you, where would a youngster go who wants to learn?

I couldn’t find anything locally, so I started searching for information online.

This article by Resurrection Fern affirmed my thoughts, and fanned the flames of the inception of ricRACK.

"Sometime in the 80's our school policy makers decided to extract some important life lessons from our school curriculum and they removed home economics and shop classes from the primary school system.

What has resulted from this is a generation of children who are unable to thread a needle, sew on buttons, cook a simple supper from scratch, wire a lamp, or fix a chair. Unless their parents, grandparents or other family members teach them they will never have the opportunity to learn. I guess they could always try to learn from a book or online tutorial of some sort. Just for fun I googled how to mend and discovered someone has just published a book on this subject that says it will teach you how to thread a needle and sew on a button. I think in these days of renewed interest in frugality every child should learn these basic skills. Along with the iphones, blackberries and notebook computers every child should own a basic little mending kit and know how to use it.

The world can no longer hold the heaps of trash created when people throw away perfectly good clothing because it is missing a button or has a tear in the seam. Almost everything can be fixed . "